passed over the mercantile class; and England, it was said, “exhibited all the appearances of a dying nation."

5. The feeling deepened rapidly among a suffering people that they were ruined by misgovernment; that their welfare was deliberately sacrificed to promote the interests of the privileged classes; that there was no safety for them but in gaining for themselves a share in the government. Among the working population of the cities. especially, reform became now the absorbing interest. They were unused to agitate, and at the outset they were not happy in their leaders. They pledged themselves to abstain from the purchase of articles which contributed to the revenue.

6

6. An ominous passion for military drill sprang up among the artisans. The unrepresented towns began to appoint representatives, who should claim a place in that House from which they were wrongfully excluded. Huge meetings, expressing themselves by monster petitions, were continually held; and unhappily these constitutional methods of influencing the legislature were 'emphasized by occasional riots.

7. The government was resolute to extinguish, by military force, the discontent of the people. The Manchester reformers held a meeting of sixty thousand persons, with no design but to petition for Parliamentary

reform. A strong military force was provided by 1819 the authorities-infantry, cavalry, and artillery. A. D. The proceedings had scarcely begun when a large body of mounted yeomanry dashed at a rapid trot among the defenceless multitude. Many persons-men, women, and little children-were carried from the field killed or injured. The thanks of the prince-regent were promptly offered to the magistrates who had directed this wicked and cowardly slaughter. The chairman and others who promoted the meeting were put on their trial for 'sedi

tion, and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

8. In further prosecution of the mode of treatment which was thus applied, Parliament was now induced to pass the Six Acts proposed by the Tory government. Henceforth Englishmen were not to assemble in larger numbers than fifty, unless a magistrate convened them; and the exciting privilege of carrying a flag on such occasions was expressly denied them. The magistrates had large powers given to search houses suspected to contain weapons. Military exercises were forbidden. Newspapers were fettered with certain arrangements as to stamps, which, it was held, would restrain their unwarrantable boldness in discussing the measures of government. The liberties of Englishmen were now at the discretion of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth.10

9. The Whig chiefs represented in Parliament the movement which was rapidly taking possession of the country. Their management of the cause was at the outset timid even to weakness. They aimed to mediate between the extreme Liberals and the Tories-between that party which was making "unlimited demands," and that other party which replied with "a total and 'peremptory denial."

10. How unevenly at this time they held the balance may be judged from Lord John Russell's 11 proposal of 1819. It was nothing greater than that the franchise of any constituency convicted of bribery should be handed over to some populous town. Even this morsel of reform was denied. The Whigs were obliged to accept the disfranchisement of one very rotten burgh and the transfer of its franchise.

11. Deep among the masses of the British people was already a demand for universal suffrage and vote by ballot. 12 Among the governing class was a settled convic

tion that any demand by the people for a share in the government was deserving of punishment as a crime. It was evident that a satisfactory measure of reform was not near. Many years passed before it was wrung from the ⚫reluctant hands of those who had it in their power to give or to withhold. The people never relaxed their effort to gain reform. Their patience and forbearance under the cruel frustration of their wishes argued fitness for the privileges from which they were debarred. They learned to put trust in the moderate counsels of Earl Grey,13 Lord John Russell, and the Whig party, and they ceased to think of force. The wishes of a people without representation in Parliament gathered weight slowly, but quite inevitably. [The French revolution of 1830 hastened the crisis. Then came the accession of William IV., and the general election consequent thereon, which returned a Parliament strongly charged with the reforming spirit.]

12. At the very outset Earl Grey made it plain that the question of immediate reform was to be made the engrossing business of the session. The Duke of Wellington, on the part of the ministry, intimated, with the calm. resolution which never failed him, that in his opinion the country possessed a legislature which answered every good purpose, and that he would resist any 1830 proposal of change. But within a few days the government saw reasons for resigning, and a ministry pledged to reform, with Earl Grey as prime minister, was appointed.

A.D.

13. It was not, however, to be permitted to this Parliament to 'inaugurate the era which was about to open. The ministry having sustained a defeat, appealed once more to the country, and a new Parliament 1831 was returned, pledged to support to the utmost the great measure which now absorbed the thought of the British people.

A. D.

14. The Reform Bill was carried in the House of Commons by great majorities. But victory was not yet secured. The House of Lords-appropriately commanded by the Duke of Wellington in its antagonism to popular rights-threw out the Bill. Earl Grey demanded from the king power to create peers in sufficient number to overbear the resistance offered by the House of Lords. The timid monarch refused, and the ministry resigned.

15. Popular excitement was unbounded. Petitions rained upon the House of Commons, demanding that the House should refuse to vote supplies. A run upon the Bank was commenced. Enormous meetings in all parts of the country resolved to pay no taxes till the Bill should pass. Plans were laid for arming large bodies of men in the northern counties and marching on London. There were serious discussions of barricades and street-fighting. The duke was reported to have said that "there was a way to make the people quiet." It was believed that he meant to suppress reform by violence, and the dragoons were seen by the eye of imagination, if not in actual fact, grinding their sabres as for the work of immediate battle.

16. Meantime, while this fierce excitement was raging over the land, a feeble effort was made to form a Tory administration with a view to some acceptable compromise. The hopeless attempt was quickly abandoned, and Earl Grey returned to office with power to add to the House of Lords such a number of new peers as would effectually quell the resistance of the obstructive 'dignitaries. Their lordships did not wait to be thus diluted. The Duke of

Wellington and a hundred other peers, majestically 1832 sullen, quitted the House and ceased from troubling. A.D. Amid rejoicing such as political victory never awakened in England before, the great measure passed which inaugurated, for all the coming generations,

government of the people, by the people, and for the

ROBERT MACKENZIE: The Nineteenth Century.